Leaf with History

Another rainy day so indoor photography it has to be! This leaf is a reminder of my visit to the Gutenberg Printing Museum in Mainz, Germany, about twenty years ago. The Museum shows four thousand years of printing history. Johannes Gutenberg from Mainz invented printing over 500 years ago with type made using a casting device and the printing press. How that was done can be experienced hands-on in his reconstructed workshop where, with a large number of old presses and typesetting machines, the history of letterpress printing comes alive. At the time I was working in a printing works where I created brochures and books by typing with an electric typewriter onto aluminium sheets which were then rolled off on a machine like the old-fashioned duplicating machines. I bought a bookmark in the Gutenberg shop as a momento of my visit – where it is now would mean going through yards of bookshelves, but always visible has been this leaf. I was so impressed by the size of them on the trees just outside the Museum (probably about 8" across) that I put one in my bag to take home. It must be twenty years old now but still, as you can see, in pretty good condition having been wedged behind a painting on my studio wall all this time. I have left on the cobwebs it has gathered!